Ask ten tradespeople what kind of asbestos training they need and you’ll probably get ten different answers. Some will shrug and say they’ve “done the online thing.” Others will mention a day course they sat years ago. A few will admit they’ve had nothing at all.
That’s a problem, because asbestos is still one of the UK’s biggest workplace killers. It sits quietly in lofts, behind kitchen panels, inside old boiler rooms and under floor tiles, waiting for someone to drill, sand or break into it. The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 say that anyone who might disturb it has to be trained — but the type of training depends on what you’re actually doing. That’s where Categories A, B and C come in.
Here’s what each one really means.
Why There Are Three Categories in the First Place
The Health and Safety Executive didn’t split training into three tiers to make life complicated. They did it because the risks genuinely are different.
A painter scraping down an old ceiling is in a different position from a contractor removing sprayed asbestos insulation from a boiler room. Training one of them like the other would be either overkill or dangerously thin. So the HSE scaled it: light-touch awareness at the bottom, full licensed-work training at the top, and a middle tier for the real but lower-risk tasks in between.
Category A: Asbestos Awareness
Category A is the entry level, and it’s the one most people in construction and maintenance need. It’s not designed to let anyone work with asbestos. It’s designed to stop them blundering into it by accident.
The workers it applies to are the ones who move through old buildings every day: electricians, plumbers, joiners, heating engineers, shopfitters, decorators, cable installers, caretakers, site managers. Basically anyone whose drill, crowbar or Stanley knife could end up in something nasty.
A good course covers the basics clearly — what asbestos is, where it tends to hide, what illnesses it causes, what the law says and, crucially, what to do the moment you suspect you’ve hit it. Stop, don’t clean up, get out, tell someone.
Because there’s no hands-on element, the HSE is happy for awareness training to be delivered online. That’s made it cheap, fast and easy to roll out across a whole workforce. An asbestos awareness course can usually be completed in a couple of hours, with a certificate at the end. Most employers refresh it once a year, which is sensible.
What Cat A does not do is qualify anyone to touch asbestos. If you need to actually cut, remove or dispose of it, you’ve moved into Category B.
Category B: Non-Licensed Work with Asbestos
Category B is for people whose jobs bring them into direct contact with asbestos-containing materials — but only the lower-risk ones that don’t need a licensed contractor.
In practice, that tends to mean tasks like:
- Taking down asbestos cement roof sheets, gutters or flues
- Scraping off textured coatings (Artex and similar)
- Removing the odd small section of asbestos insulating board where the risk is low enough
- Collecting samples to send off for analysis
Some of this work counts as Notifiable Non-Licensed Work (NNLW), which means the HSE has to be told before you start. All of it demands proper training — theory and practical.
A Cat B course goes well beyond awareness. Workers learn how to risk-assess the job in front of them, set up a controlled work area, use the right PPE (including a properly face-fit-tested respirator), wet materials down to keep fibres from flying, bag the waste correctly and decontaminate themselves before stepping back into the world. There’s usually a discussion of what to do when something goes wrong, because it does.
Refreshers are expected every year, and the training should reflect the specific job. A generic certificate doesn’t cut it if you’re doing something the course didn’t cover.
Category C: Licensed Work with Asbestos
Category C is the top of the tree. It’s for work that, by law, only a licensed contractor can carry out — and those are the jobs where getting it wrong has the worst consequences.
We’re talking about sprayed asbestos coatings, pipe lagging, boiler insulation and most higher-risk work involving asbestos insulating board. High-risk materials, often in confined spaces, where fibre counts can climb fast.
Training at this level is a world away from an online module. It involves in-person practical assessments inside mock enclosures, instruction on negative pressure units, air monitoring, four-stage clearance procedures, and detailed regulatory knowledge. Licensed operatives are expected to stay sharp through regular refreshers, medical surveillance and close supervision from their licence holder.
You won’t find Cat C training bundled into a two-hour eLearning module, and you shouldn’t want to. eLearning can support the classroom theory side, but the hands-on work has to happen in person with a specialist provider.
So Which One Do You Actually Need?
The honest answer: it depends entirely on what the person is going to do on Monday morning.
If they’re working around old buildings but trying to avoid asbestos, Cat A is enough. If they’re going to actively disturb low-risk ACMs, it has to be Cat B. If they’re removing lagging or sprayed coatings, it’s Cat C — and only under a licence.
As an employer, you’re the one who has to make that call and write it down. A decent risk assessment covers what asbestos might be present, what work is planned, and who has which training. If something ever goes wrong, that document is the first thing the HSE inspector will ask to see.
Most businesses find that asbestos awareness fits naturally alongside their other health and safety courses — manual handling, working at height, COSHH, fire safety and the rest. Running them through a single online platform makes the admin easier and keeps everyone’s certificates in one place.
This article is a general guide. For your own workplace, always check the latest HSE guidance or speak to a competent asbestos professional before deciding which category of training applies.
The Bottom Line
Cat A, Cat B and Cat C aren’t three flavours of the same thing. They’re three different jobs, for three different levels of risk, and they don’t substitute for one another.
Get the category right and you’ve done something genuinely useful: you’ve given someone the knowledge they need to go home at the end of their career without a disease that takes decades to show up and can’t be cured.
Get it wrong, and the cost — to the worker, their family, and the business — is one nobody should be willing to pay.
